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Tech 10: Rebooted: Behind the Scenes
This page is an in-depth look from the creator of Tech 10 at the process behind the creation of Tech 10: Rebooted itself, the aliens, the episodes, and the characters. This page will be updated with every new episode, character, and alien, so stay tuned! Behind the Concept Back in the beginning of 2012, I was facing a dilemma; specifically, the 'Tech 10' series was getting tired, I knew it was getting tired, but I had already written too much of it to change it out of the blue. In my mind, there was only one solution: completely reboot the entire thing! So, without even bothering to give my series a proper ending, (I'm rather lazy if you hadn't noticed), I started a new series, taking the ideas of the old one and making them new! It turned out great, right?! Well, no. It didn't. It reeeaaaaally didn't Even with a year or so of experience, I was so new to the whole 'writing' thing that I was still under the influence of the Dunning-Kruger effect. For those who don't feel like reading the linked page, it's basically a cognitive bias in unskilled indivuals that leads them to believe their work is much greater than it actually is; it's not really arrogance persay, but simply a case of knowing so little about a subject that you don't even know you don't know anything about it. Anyways, I wrote the first episode, added a bunch of pages, admired my work, aaaaand promptly let the series drift into oblivion. Woops. In my defense, I was still making effort to make new aliens, but even that stopped around the middle of 2013, essentially leaving the series to die. I had lost interest in the wiki, and the end result was letting this thing rot all the way until early 2014. In January 2014, around the second anniversary of Tech 10: Rebooted's creation, I made a new series, Not Applicable, which was basically just an attempt to improve my writing and drawing skills. I had a bunch of fun with it, and while still in the swing of things, decided to restart Tech 10: Rebooted. I wrote new episodes, re-wrote the pages, made new aliens, and generally just made it better, bringing us to where we are now. That's about all I have to say regarding the concept, so let's move on to the meat of the series: the episodes. Behind the Episodes I'm going to be going over the ideas for each of these episodes seperately, so each one will have their own sub-section. Let's go! Insert Horrible Title Pun Here This episode was pretty much the only one I made for the series' original run in 2012. I wanted to start off the series with something to establish it as a self-aware comedy, (which I am incredibly glad I did not follow through with), so this episode is pretty much just a parody of the previous Tech 10 continuity. As such, I have deemed it non-canon, but left it there as an indicator of WHAT I AM WRITING FOOOOOR!!! Always wanted to use that. A Blade is a Blade Okay, so after returning to this series and coming up with a few episode concepts, I decided that the first thing I should do is bring in Alvono and give Tech the Pyronaut Blade. Some may ask why I didn't start out by giving Tech's origin story, (where he got the SpecTrix, why he's fighting crime, why none of our protagonists are good people, etc.), and the answer is simple: I didn't feel like it. Now, I will explain all of it in a later episode, but I felt that Tech and Aquadilus could establish their characters fairly well without a real introductory episode. Thus, this episode was born, and the canon part of this series could begin anew. Just look at me all up in here, using them fancy words like 'anew'. My pretention knows no bounds. Welcome to The Void Boy, this episode was one wild ride. It introduced our first major villain, eight of Tech's aliens, and the first Ultimate and Combined forms of the series, not to mention the Eldritch Abomination that sucks out people's sanity. It also neatly tied this series into the same continuity as Not Applicable by having The Void casually mention the Zenturi, shedding a bit more light onto the mystery of just what exactly they are. I really enjoyed writing the fight scene for this one, as it was extremely fast-paced and showcased the abilities of the SpecTrix fairly well, showing that while it is a powerful device, it still has potentially dangerous flaws. Another interesting thing to note is that I actually bookmarked the area where the fight scene takes place. It's in some random desert area in southern Utah, though, so there's really not much to see. If you're interested in checking it out anyways, here are the coordinates: 38.4304583333, -110.337969444. You're welcome. Into The Pit Hoo boy, this one. This is currently my favorite episode of the series, as it officially showed that Tech 10: Rebooted is not just better-written than the original continuity, it can also get a whole lot darker as well. While Blyte did a decent job of making the series a bit more mature, this episode temporarily shot the rating up from Y-7 to TV-14. The Creature here was based mainly off the Wendigo, a creature from Native American mythology, specifically this interpretation . (WARNING: Creepy as heck!) I modified the design and concept to fit the location of an underground cave, as is especially noticable when Tech attempts to burn it. Though the original Wendigo's main weakness is fire, The Creature seems entirely immune to it. Also, let us have a moment of silence for the loss of our dear friend, Dean. R.I.P. in peace, Dean. May heavn's angles bring thee to thy rest. Ready To...Rock? So, Igneoux is back. That's a thing. Yeah, this episode basically served as an introduction to the new Igneoux, along with the first appearance of the Mutation Lab and Xr. Nullamor. Also ULTIMATE ELECTROLITE, WOOOOOT! You know, Electrolite and Terminano keep popping up in a lot of episodes. I don't really have much of an excuse for that other than usefulness and author's bias. Okay, some things I feel need to be expounded upon: First, the Xr. part of Nullamor's name is actually his title; I would imagine it being something similar to a doctrate, though since it's not really an Earth title, there's not a lot to compare it to. Second, the Igneoux here will have something to do with the original Tech 10 continuity, but it's probably not who you think. MYYYYYSTERYYYYY Fatal Light I love RocklES and I am never going to apologize for that name. Even if it does look like it says 'rockels'. In other news, Dethrouge is back, and this time, more effective of a villain than ever! In the original series, the only thing we ever saw him do was use mind control, make a stupid speech, then leave. In this continuity, he's far more threatening and HOLY CRAP DID HE JUST BLOW UP A CITY?! Yes, with this edition, I decided to make Dethrouge actually intimidating, and give him a better design than... well... Yeah... Anyways, I know I might turn some people off with the swearing a bit later in the story, but I do honestly think it was rather fitting, given the situation. I usually try to keep the language PG, so I hope it comes across as situational rather than just because. Oh, and I've got some plans for that body The Void is making. This should be interesting... Much Ado About Aliens I'll be honest, this one was sort of hard to plan out. I know I wanted to: * Have Tech get the new SpecTrix. * Introduce Magister Blue. * Reveal Igneoux's identity. * Give Dethrouge some backstory. But I really wasn't sure how to do it, so this one took a while, even by my standards. As for the episode itself and how it turned out, Igneoux being the original Tech was something I wasn't really sure I could pull off, but I think it went okay. It's not blatantly stated in the episode, but the context clues should give you everything you need. It also serves as an easy way to wrap up a story arc for a series I abandoned a few years ago. I would recommend reading Tech 10: Rebooted: Short 1: Dethrouge before this episode, because I think the information about Dethrouge's backstory hits a bit harder that way. (Not to mention it was written in that order.) On a final note for this episode, trying to write an exposition dump without making it sound like an exposition dump is stupid hard. A Sordid Story Yeah, so, I don't know how much there is to talk about with this one, but I'll give it a shot. For this episode, I finally decided I should probably put Tech's backstory into the limelight. Tech's initial backstory for this series was basically the same as the previous Tech 10 continuity, with him meeting Aquadilus later. Upon review, I realized that the 'thing falls from sky and turns some guy into a superhero' thing has been done to death, so I tweaked it to its current version. Writing the episode itself was sort of weird to do, because I wanted to give it sort of that wacky feeling the original continuity had, except, you know, good. I'm pretty satisfied with how that turned out, but the weird part was trying to balance it out with the darker themes presented. I think having Aquadilus along for that probably helped a bit, as he often is one of the more balancing forces in Tech's weird life. Wait. Weird is a synonym with strange. Strange is a synonym with bizarre. Bizarre is a synonym with over-the-top manliness! Tech 10's Bizarre Adventure conFRIMED!!1! (Also, Tech's real name is Isaac Matthew Logical. I finally made the whole issue around his name make sense, and it only took me half a decade to do so!) Absolute Knowledge It has been almost ten months since Not Applicable's last update. To anyone actually interested in that series, I apologize immensely. Once I'm done with the first season of Tech 10, wrapping up that story will be my next project. Anyways, literally the entire concept for this episode was just 'everyone goes to the library'. That's it. And while I was writing it, I figured out how ridiculously difficult it was to make a concept like that interesting. That was when I realized I had a perfectly good character on hand that could immediately make any situation un-boring! (I know that's not a word, just roll with it.) That is pretty much the only reason why Napoleon is in this episode. It was too boring without him, so I threw him in as the writing equivalent of a cheat code. Besides all that, I also took the opportunity to bring the Obsidian Death back in as villains, because really, they don't do very much. Hope Nevermore Literally this entire episode is pretty much just setup for characters that won't pay off until season 2. Of course, it also features Tech getting even more holes through his chest, so there's that. Well, okay, there is a certain amount of setup for Void Energy that pays off in the finale for season 1, but whatever. The Measure Of A Man Finally, more than three years after the series premiere, Tech 10: Rebooted finally finishes its first season. Pretty unbelievable, I know. So, yeah. The Puppet Master's secret super weapon this entire time...was a giant robot. I don't know if that's a letdown or even better than what you were expecting, but I have to say, it was all worth it in my opinion for the short fight between the robot and Warlord Kroz. He literally crashes his warship into the robot, rams it out of orbit and into a mountainside, then proceeds to get out of his warship and start beating the crap out of the giant robot '''with his bare hands. Keep in mind, the robot is about one hundred and fifty stories tall, making it almost as tall as the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa tallest artificial structure in the world]. Granted, this scene is directly inspired by a similar part in Gurren Lagann, but I still hold no regrets. Tech's character has really come a long way, I think. Gone are his old days as a completely unlikable, angsty teen anti-hero. He's reached the point where he considers all life worth protecting, including his own. He's moved past just being willing to die for his ideals, he's willing to live for them. He's gained a more optimistic outlook on the world, discovering his own path and a greater sense of right and wrong, as well as a much more sociable personality. His mini-speech to Dethrouge at the end sort of solidifies his new ideology, and further establishes his determination to defeat the Anti-Life Entity. He has a ways to go, to be sure, but he's definitely a lot better than he was at the beginning of the series. He might even be willing to form a proper team someday! Hmm... Also, Tech finally starts learning how to use Void Energy. I wonder where that will go in the future... Behind the Characters Each character has a bit of a backstory to them, so for ease of access, I'll be splitting each character into their own subsections. Tech Tech might seem like a bit of a tough nut to crack, but his explanation is really a lot more simple than you might. You see, the original Tech from the previous continuity was basically your typical author stand-in Mary Sue. So, when I was thinking about what the new Tech should be like, I had an idea: instead of putting in my good traits and making for an extremely boring character, I would base the new Tech off of my bad traits instead. Cynicism, sarcasm, rudeness, depression, fear of heights, the list goes on. His design was also initially based off me, but ended up looking extremely different, which was definitely a good thing. As I said in my Writing Guide, it's never a good idea to get too attached to your characters, and I think I managed that pretty well with this version of Tech. Of course, now the problem is getting anyone to sympathize with him. Eh, character development for later. Aquadilus I'll be honest, when I first started production of this series, I really didn't want to bring back Alvono. I found his old character really flat and annoying, so I decided to give Tech a different assistant, though still keeping with the theme of being pretty unorthodox. I had no idea how to do that, so I just took the design from a one-off poster alien and edited it slightly. From the start, I wanted Aquadilus to be more of a balancing force for Tech. I couldn't really see Tech having a Morality Pet, so I figured it would be better for a sidekick to deliver some tough love. Aquadilus is a jerk, but he's a lot more grounded and gruff than Tech, and more likely to be compassionate. Alvono When I came back to the production of this series, I decided I wanted Alvono back again. For some reason. Anyways, since the old Alvono's role was pretty much taken already, I decided to give him a bit of a different personality. Arrogant, narcissistic, obnoxious, obsessed with the internet, and overall pretty useless, a lot of Alvono's new role is to give Tech a healthy dose of his own medicine. Don't get me wrong, if Tech ever actually learns to use that sword of his, he'll come in handy, but for now, he doesn't really do much. I also want to clarify right now that the new Alvono isn't going to be evil or betray Tech or anything. He's a bit too naive and goofy for that in this continuity. Moranna Ceres GOOD GOD THIS CHARACTER. Now, you may be wondering why I would choose this character to talk about before any of the other characters you could probably use more information on. Well, the answer to that is simple. THE DEVELOPMENT TIME FOR THIS CHARACTER WAS RIDICULOUS. Seriously, the original concept for this character has been floating around for three years. Three years. And in all those years, I didn't even come up with a name for her until I was writing the very end of the episode she appeared in. Basically, the original concept of the character was just as a dark counterpart to Tech, with an Omnitrix of her own and all the same aliens, just with some different body types and a purple uniform. This was generally the idea for her character for most of the development period, and I even have some old concept art of her Terminano transformation lying around. I eventually realized that this sort of idea was overused, and switched to her being an assassin, but still with her own Omnitrix. After a while, I just sort of dropped the Omnitrix thing completely, because I really couldn't find any good way to fit it into the actual story. As for her current character, it turned out a lot more interesting to write than I had actually expected. Her original personality was very two-dimensional, but then I got thinking about the logic behind the whole situation. Why would a teenager be part of this assassins guild? What sort of mental impact would that lifestyle have? What sort of implications does the situation make about her backstory? I took advantage of those questions and used them to flesh out her character, which I think was for the best. Behind the Aliens This is going to take a while. Okay, the first thing I should note is that when I began this series, the main idea for the aliens was to take the original continuity's aliens and improve them while adding a few new ones here and there. This idea has held over a bit into the present day, and is actually the explanation for a lot of these aliens, so whenever this is the case, I'll simply put 'Retool' in the 'Purpose' section of their description. Basically, I'll go over each alien's, purpose, concept, and add extra notes if necessary, though considering how many of them there are, don't expect too much detail. I'll also leave out the purpose out with the Ultimate aliens, as it's fairly obvious the purpose of them is to up the alien's power level. Normal Aliens Vaceuoom Purpose: Retool Concept: He's basically Kirby. Not the vacuum cleaners, the Nintendo character. Not my most original work. Also, it should be noted that his name is pronounced 'vak-ee-uh-oom'. Confusing. Electrolite Purpose: Retool Concept: Electrolite was based on lightning bolts. Fairly straight-forward. Extra Notes: Electrolite is currently my favorite alien out of the bunch, with his two follow ups being Rockoustic and Terminano, in that order. Viris Purpose: Retool Concept: A humanoid creature based off of Bacteriophage virus types. Rockoustic Purpose: Retool Concept: Humanoid rock creature. Extra Notes: Rockoustic has gone through about three or four redesigns, making him easily the most changed of all my aliens. Fearoid Purpose: Retool Concept: Demon/Vampire, hearkening back to his original series roots as an evil entity. Carbon Purpose: Retool Concept: A living carbon isotope, allowing for various forms of attack and defense. Extra Notes: Yeah, despite the name difference, Carbon is basically the new version of Crystalean from the original Tech 10 continuity. Because of this, I decided to make it a shared form between Tech 10: Rebooted and Not Applicable, further tying their series together. Heatjet Purpose: Retool Concept: A humanoid fire with armor made of more fire. Ridiculous? Yes. Cool? Also yes. Spiderfreak Purpose: Retool Concept: A sort of tarantula with a POISON DART MACHINE GUN ON ITS BUTT WOOOOOO Extra Notes: Not sure why exactly he has a sillouhette of a head on his uniform, but whateves. Also, more NA/T10:R tie ins. Technius Purpose: Retool Concept: Living circuit board of DOOOOOM! Extra Notes: Technius's original design had a giant drill replacing his right forearm. Kinda wish I had gone with that design, but it would've been rather redundant with Sandrill around. Luminferus Purpose: Retool Concept: I'm actually not sure with this one. I think it had something to do with spikes and fancy hats, though. Umbra Purpose: Retool Concept: See Luminferus. Extra Notes: Fun fact: Luminferus's art is facing right and to the front, whereas Umbra's is facing left and to the back. It's little touches like these that make me BTFF's best artist. Golurth Purpose: To provide Earth and Mana abilities. Concept: Golurth is based on Golems, as is especially evident in his Planet and Species Information section. Extra Notes: Golurth is my most drawn alien so far, with three pictures to his name, but the only one that actually gets his design right is the one in his profile box. It's details like this that make me BTFF's worst artist. Magmator Purpose: Retool Concept: Volcanoes and molten rock. Extra Notes: Another retool alien I changed the name of. With this one, however, it was because I found out the name of his previous version, Magmortar, was already the name of a Pokemon. Oops. Rebide Purpose: Retool Concept: I honestly have no idea what this thing is. It's transparent red, has ridiculously long arms, and for some reason barbels. Your guess is as good as mine. Extra Notes: The original Rebide was one of the few aliens I made back then that I actually realized was terrible; as such, I decided to just put it out there as a free to use alien not attatched to my series. No one has used him as of yet. Sandrill Purpose: Providing sand, tunneling, and amorphous abilities. Concept: Something of a humanoid mole. Gravitar Purpose: Providing gravity control. Concept: A robot powered by some sort of furnace reactor. Extra Notes: Gravitar was originally supposed to be an alien for the previous Tech 10 continuity, but the design I made was so terrible, I never got around to actually making the page. For the record, it was some kind of reptilian thing with a horrible color scheme. Praplant Purpose: Providing plant-based abilities. Concept: A humoungous Venus Fly Trap made out of large vines. Extra Notes: As far as i can tell, this is pretty much the most threatening alien Tech has, and is one of very few that have been explicitly stated to be predatory. Steelith Purpose: Retool Concept: Skeletal humanoid robot. Extra Notes: Another renamed alien. In this case, it's because his namesake, Steelth had a lot of extra powers, making him rather OP. Also, the name was stupid. Destructorb Purpose: Making nuclear explosions. Concept: A sort of combination of the the classic spherical bomb and the radiation hazard symbol. Extra Notes: Kind of a lazy alien, but dang I love that Planet and Species Information section. Terminano Purpose: Providing super speed. Concept: A superhero-ish robot composed of tiny nanobots, sort of like a human body is composed of cells. Extra Notes: I believe Terminano was the very first new alien made for the reboot, and has remained one of my favorite aliens so far. Splitter Purpose: Retool Concept: The original Splitter was basically a rip-off of Ditto. This was an attempt to make it not such a rip-off of Ditto. Extra Notes: The bit about his planet's terraforming was actually just me subtly venting about Minecraft's new terrain generation. The more you know. Spiritualist Purpose: Summoning mythological creatures. Concept: A sort of ghost covered in symbols manifesting out of Pandora's Box. Extra Notes: The symbols in his design, the Eye of Horus, the Ouroboros, the Hwemudua, and the Pleiades, respectively, were chosen for their meanings. The Eye of Horus symbolizes cosmic wholeness, the Ouroboros symbolizes cyclic time, eternity, and the indivisible, self-sustaining character of nature, the Hwemudua symbolizes the need to strive for the best quality in both construction of goods and human endeavors, and the Pleiades is a magical amulet seal. Go go reference books! PHAcid Purpose: Providing acid-based abilities. Concept: A skeleton warrior leaking highly corrosive acid. Extra Notes: This is the only alien so far to have irregular characters in the names of his planet and species. Temportal Purpose: Retool Concept: Bulky robot. Extra Notes: This is the only alien whose art I've drawn on paper, then digitized and enhanced, giving it a sort of scratchy look. I also based his species on crabs for some reason. Huh. Destramonium Purpose: Retool Concept: A mix between his original design and Kali, the Indian goddess of death and destruction. Extra Notes: The chest brace he's wearing is based off the girdle of either severed hands or severed heads (it depends on who you ask) that Kali wears. I'd say the more you know, but honestly the only lesson to gain here is that mythology is '''WEIRD. NUclES Purpose: Retool Concept: A sort of armored furnace similar to NRG. Extra Notes: I told you I'd figure out what strong force and weak force do! HAHAHAHAHAAAA!!! Overtide Purpose: Retool Concept: Mostly based off the original design, with some icy elements. Extra Notes: His eye roughly has the shape of diving goggles. Make of that what you will. TyMR Purpose: Retool Concept: Basically this. Extra Notes: TiMR 's return to the series as T-'y'-MR was never really planned in advance, but I ended up needing a time alien anyways. To be honest, that's where a lot of these aliens come from. Mysticon Purpose: Retool Concept: A foggy version of Alien X, basically. Extra Notes: Another renamed alien. His namesake, Misticon, was never used and borderline non-canon, not to mention the name was just silly spelled like that. Ultimate Forms Ultimate Golurth Concept: Ultimate Golurth was based off the two final mecha in the anime Gurren Lagann, Granzeboma and the titular Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. (Unless you're watching the compilation movies, in which case the final two mecha are Super Granzeboma and Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.) Extra Notes: Nothing much other than if you haven't seen Gurren Lagann by now, you need to watch it. Right now. Seriously, bookmark this page and go watch it. I'll wait. Ultimate Electrolite Hey, did you watch it yet? If not, for shame. Concept: A far more heavyset Electrolite with metal armor. Extra Notes: I have two of the four fundamental interactions in nature down. This guy covers electromagnetism and Gravitar covers gravity. Now to figure exactly what the heck strong interaction and weak interaction do and make aliens for them. EDIT: '''Figured it out, making alien. '''EDIT: Made alien, posted above. Ultimate Temportal Concept: A four-armed version of Temportal with a much more crab-like design. Extra Notes: I like this design a lot more than his base form's. It has a lot more personality. Ultimate Terminano Concept: A buff Terminano. Extra Notes: This design borrows a few elements from XLR8's design. Ultimate Rockoustic Concept: A more crystalline version of his base form. Extra Notes: Ultimate Rockoustic's original design was more robotic in appearance, and had several colored gemstones on various points of his body. Ultimate Overtide Concept: Ice spikes. Always need more ice spikes. Extra Notes: The reason his picture has water effects is basically just because I wanted to test some digital brushes. Ultimate Heatjet Concept: Basically giving Heatjet more knight-like armor. Also blue and white fire, because those are technically the hottest types of fire. Simple stuff. Extra Notes: You know, if so many things in this dang universe weren't fireproof, this guy would probably be the most powerful non- 'laws of nature' type alien. Ultimate Viris Concept: His design was actually based on the Injectors from Steven Universe. Extra Notes: So, the original Viris for this continuity was based on a bacteriophage virus, then his evolved form was based on the Injectors, which were also based on bacteriophage viruses. This has to be the most roundabout alien design I've ever made, and I love it! Ultimate Fearoid Concept: Basically just kinda...Fearoid, except not, I guess. Extra Notes: This is probably my least favorite evolution, simply because I couldn't come up with a great design for it. Lineart turned out nice, at least. All crisp. Combined Forms Blyte Purpose: Retool Concept: Half rotten tissue, half corrupted tissue, and all NOPENOPENOPE SOOOOOO MUCH NOPE. Extra Notes: For this guy I figured, "Well, golly gosh darn gee willikers, the old Blyte sure is swell, I want a new one! But this one should give you nightmares and stare into your soul. Yeah!" and then this happened. No, I'm not sure what's wrong with me either. RocklES Purpose: A fusion between Tech's arguably most powerful aliens Concept: Basically just a mix between Rockoustic and NUclES. Nothing too special Extra Notes: I know it looks like the name should be pronounced 'rockels'. I'm not apologizing. Q&A Got questions? Well, I got answers! Just post your question about the series in the comments section below, and I'll get back to you with the answer ASAP, then post it in this section for future reference. Ask away! Category:Tech 10 Category:Tech 10: Rebooted Category:Earth-83 Category:Behind the Scenes